Random musings as I muddle along trying to master life, motherhood and being a decent human being

Wednesday, 16 November 2016

Broken electoral systems

I will probably, possibly write something about the US election at some point, if I can get beyond the concept of the Orange One being future President. In the meantime, here are some thoughts on the electoral system that got him there. Not about the people who voted, or why they voted or didn't vote, not about the rights and wrongs of anyone's opinions or choices, just about the mechanics of the system.

As I understand the electoral college system in the US, the intention is to ensure that the sparsely populated states receive some "attention" from the campaigning candidates, and their concerns and views are not neglected while all campaigning is focused on the more populous seaboard areas of the USA. Which, on the surface, sounds like a reasonable idea. Except when you stop and think about what you're saying, which is that lumps of land deserve an equal chance to be consulted, regardless of how many people live on them.

Here's an example of someone suggesting that lumps of land need to be heard:

As far as I can make out, the author of the text on the above image believes it would be unconscionable to live in a "gray zone" and be out-voted by the people in the "blue zones". Except, half the US population live in those pretty blue bits, and I can't quite see why huge swathes of prairie, mountain and desert need more of a voice than 50% of the population. People need to be punished for living in densely populated areas?

It's a good and worthy ideal to ensure that, particularly in such a large and diverse country, different geographical areas receive their own representation that reflects their differing needs and interests. That's why Senators and Representatives are elected to represent their constituencies. That's why the US has a significant amount of power devolved to State level, with Governors and State Legislatures, and a more modest level of power at Federal level. The President, however, is the head of state. One man** to head the country. And there's no honestly justifiable reason why every vote cast by every citizen should not hold equal weight.

Instead, however, you end up with the current situation, where considerably more individual human beings voted for the losing candidate than the winning one. In fact, you end up with the situation where, had 53,447 people spread across three states (Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania) voted differently, the outcome of the election would have been different. That's less than the population of Lowestoft*.

If 13,629 voters in Wisconsin, 5,712 voters in Michigan and 34,106 voters in Pennsylvania had voted for HRC instead of DJT, she would have taken all 46 available electoral college votes in those states and won the election. (And I am aware that there were also states, such as Colorado and New Hampshire that HRC took by a narrow margin, which would have gone to DJT with the change of only a handful of voters).

Now, obviously, before the election, nobody actually knew that it would be these three states alone, and so few voters, who would spell the difference between one candidate and the other. But everyone knew that there were "swing states", everyone knew that there was no point campaigning in the safe red or safe blue states. So the electoral college system, far from ensuring that every citizen is a focus of the presidential campaign, and is considered and targeted, instead ensures that a small sub-set of the population is the focus of all the attention, and vast swathes of the country basically don't get much consideration. And, it doesn't matter how large the majority is in a "safe" state, that isn't reflected in the outcome. The fact that HRC took two and a half million more votes in California than DJT doesn't change the number of electoral college votes she received. She could have won California with a majority of one person, and she'd still have received all 55 EC votes.

As with the British system, which I've complained about before, the electoral system for president of the USA is demonstrably broken. It is disconnected from the concept of fair representation of the people.

Just like I'm now labelled a "Bremoaner" by a subset of gloating, sneering Brexit-voters who think objecting to anything is simply whinging and not an exercise in free speech, I'm sure there will be those who will tell me that everyone knew the rules before the election, and that DJT won by playing the system, and to shut up and stop whinging, and that it's too late to complain. The supremely arrogant DJT is already adamant he could have won the popular vote, he just didn't bother trying since he didn't need to. To (mis)quote Mandy Rice-Davies, "well he would say that, wouldn't he?"

It won't come as any surprise to you to discover that I disagree. It's never too late to complain. It's never too late to point out injustice and stupidity. It may be an irrelevance when it comes to the election that has just occurred, but that shouldn't mean everyone should just shrug their shoulders and say "yeah, the system's shit, but it's our shit and we're sticking with it". Why should anyone accept a broken system that allows a minority to elect a president?*** I can see why it might not have been a priority to change the system of the Electoral College up until now, as it has largely managed to reflect the popular vote. In fact, only five times in history has it failed to do so - in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016. So, for 112 years it wasn't perverting the will of the people. And we all know here in Britain that "the will of the people" is sacrosanct.

I'm not an American. I have no say in the political structure and systems of the USA, but I can and will point out that arcane electoral systems, like the Electoral College and our own First Past The Post system, are quite frankly a bit rubbish, and unless we, the people who are governed under broken systems, demand change... it's not going to happen.

* I have nothing against Lowestoft.

** Let's be honest, it's always been a man, and at the current rate, that's not going to change in a hurry.

*** Obviously, the minority are likely to be perfectly happy with the status quo, and then say things like, "you didn't complain before, did you?" Which is enormously constructive.

7 comments:

The division of electoral college votes is controlled by each state individually; it is almost certainly unconstitutional for the federal government to regulate that aspect of the election. ("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.") Also, you probably know, but originally electors were the only persons being voted for. They then selected and voted on the president without direct input from their (white, male, property owning) constituents.

I also think it's a terrible system, but there are, getting a revolution which overturns 225 years of the same damn Constitution, only two options to change it: a constitutional amendment, or legislation in each state. The less populous states, which are R strongholds, are very likely to strongly oppose the first, which will kill it. The second... is also hard.

Of course, perhaps El Natasha will provide us with a constitutional crisis. But I really hope not.

P.S. I would say the intent of the electoral college wad to prevent direct democracy as much as possible. It has persisted due to the aforementioned difficulties in changing it, and due to the perverse incentives for safe states to not change the winner take all mechanism. When the electoral college was envisioned, the US was only the eastern seaboard.

Yeah, I get how it ended up this way, and why there's so little prospect of change. The people who *could* change it would lose out. Just like our FPTP system. We had an electoral commission that reported on what the best alternative would be. They suggested something called AV+. Then, when we were offered a vote on electoral reform, AV+ wasn't one of the things offered, since the government of the day really didn't want us to choose that in case it reduced their hold on the system. Instead we were offered a really bad alternative, which (unsurprisingly) nobody wanted.

Same thing happens in the EU for exactly the same reasons. Smaller states only agree to join the super-sate if they get some say in what gets decided, and they end up with more representation per head of population than the bigger countries like France and Germany.It seems fair enough to me.

Saying the US electoral system is demonstrably broken, is an assumption that the system is broken, but it did exactly what it was designed to do - it worked flawlessly.

What would you be writing if the populist had captured the popular vote and the crook supported by Big Money and the MSM had won the electoral college? Or am I too cynical?

The same thing does not happen in the EU. We don't elect a President of the EU, we elect local representatives who take their seat in a Parliament.

Smaller states getting more representation per head of population is absolutely fine for a house of representatives (ie Senate, Congress, State Legislature, EU Parliament etc), where the representation is intended to be on a constituency basis, as I made quite clear in my post.

The President is a single person, elected as a Head of State, and there is no reason he should be elected in an imbalanced fashion. His job is not to argue both sides of the coin, or stand up for one corner of the country in preference to another. I maintain that the system is not fit for purpose.

And yes, I would have objected had the popular vote and EC vote been split in the opposite direction, just like I objected to our FPTP system even when the party whose candidate I had voted for had won overall control in this country. I would have been less upset at the outcome had HRC won instead of DJT, but I would still have objected to the manner in which it was achieved. Maybe it comes as a surprise to you that I have principles.

The same thing does not happen in the EU. We don't elect a President of the EU, we elect local representatives who take their seat in a Parliament.

Smaller states getting more representation per head of population is absolutely fine for a house of representatives (ie Senate, Congress, State Legislature, EU Parliament etc), where the representation is intended to be on a constituency basis, as I made quite clear in my post.

The President is a single person, elected as a Head of State, and there is no reason he should be elected in an imbalanced fashion. His job is not to argue both sides of the coin, or stand up for one corner of the country in preference to another. I maintain that the system is not fit for purpose.

And yes, I would have objected had the popular vote and EC vote been split in the opposite direction, just like I objected to our FPTP system even when the party whose candidate I had voted for had won overall control in this country. I would have been less upset at the outcome had HRC won instead of DJT, but I would still have objected to the manner in which it was achieved. Maybe it comes as a surprise to you that I have principles.